This unique book brings together new contributions, responding to critics and setting out their current views, by some of the leading protagonists in the long, and often heated, debate about British decline. The second half of the book builds on these chapters by systematically examining key themes and issues. Contributors include Andrew Gamble, Martin Wiener, Correlli Barnett, Will Hutton, W.D. Rubinstein, Sidney Pollard, Samuel Brittan, Stuart Hall, David Marquand, and Jonathan Clark.